Firehouse Tour Dan Garlow treated us to a great tour of where he works. The A’s met at the Conoco (where else?) for a tour of two firehouses in Parker and Centenial. The HAZMAT truck in parker was the first, and then we went to the Centenial Airport, where Dan gave us a great tour of where he works. The first row shows the A’s lined up and Dan explaining details of the HAZMAT truck.

The tour of Dan’s airport digs, where he spends much time revealed many details of how a fireman/rescue operations are conducted. At the left are two of the trucks that Dan drives and operates. The Aircraft Rescue truck is used for aircraft crashes near or at the Centenial airport. Dan’s ladder truck can put fire fighters 100 ft. above the ground.

Greeley Model RR Tour This tour (using modern cars) began with a call from the Parker Model Railroad Club asking if we wanted to join them for a tour of a NEW model RR museum in Greeley. This new attraction sports the largest H0 gauge model RR layout in the USA, at 5000 sq. ft. The photo at the left shows the museum building and director Dave Troussell giving us the layout tour.

The layout models portions of an actual railroad in Southern Oregon It is hard to believe that the rail cars are only 1 1/2 inches high. The theme of the layout is lumbering. Shown here is one of the large number of sawmills. The model railroad simulates logging, lumbering and even has a seaside port, complete with scale model ships. The simulated 30 miles of track can operate up to 20 trains simultaneously, using computer control, as in a real railroad. Under the layout is a 100’ long staging yard for assembling the trains.  Details of the Greeley Freight Station can be obtained at www.gfsm.org

There were a large number of non railroad scenes, some of which were humerous. Shown here is one of the volunteers that built the layout so that you can get a feel for the scale of the buildings. A scale model forest fire, complete with smoke which could be operated by a push button..

There were a large number of cars included in various scenes. One of the most humorous is a couple of guys pushing an old car off a cliff to join several others at the bottom (not shown).

There is even a Model A Ford in the display. A 1929 Station Wagon which is incredibly detailed for only being 1 1/2 inches long. This H0 gauge model is 87 times smaller than the real thing. The Model A was donated by the Northern Colorado Model A Club after they toured the museum.